[353] “La Moza de Cantaro” and “La Esclava de su Galan” have continued to be favorites down to our own times. The first was printed at London, not many years ago, and the last at Paris, in Ochoa’s collection, 1838, 8vo, and at Bielefeld, in that of Schütz, 1840, 8vo. Perhaps the best specimen of them is “The Wise Man at Home,” in which the hero, if he may be so called, is Mendo, the son of a poor charcoal-burner.[354] He has married the only child of a respectable farmer, and is in an easy condition of life, with the road to advancement, at least in a gay course, open before him. But he prefers to remain where he is. He refuses the solicitations of a neighbouring lawyer or clerk, engaged in public affairs, who would have the honest Mendo take upon himself the airs of an _hidalgo_ and _caballero_. Especially upon what was then the great point in private life,--his relations with his pretty wife,--he shows his uniform good sense, while his more ambitious friend falls into serious embarrassments, and is obliged at last to come to him for counsel and help. [354] Comedias, Tom. VI., Madrid, 1615, ff. 101, etc. It may be worth notice, that the character of Mendo is like that of Camacho in the Second Part of Don Quixote, which was first printed in the same year, 1615. The resemblance between the two, however, is not very strong, and I dare say is wholly accidental. The doctrine of the piece is well explained in the following reply of Mendo to his friend, who had been urging him to lead a more showy life, and raise the external circumstances of his father. He that was born to live in humble state Makes but an awkward knight, do what you will. My father means to die as he has lived, The same plain collier that he always was; And I, too, must an honest ploughman die. ’T is but a single step, or up or down; For men there must be that will plough and dig, And, when the vase has once been filled, be sure ’T will always savor of what first it held.[355] [355] El que nacio para humilde Mal puede ser cauallero. Mi padre quiere morir, Leonardo, como nacio. Carbonero me engendró; Labrador quiero morir. Y al fin es un grado mas, Aya quien are y quien caue. Siempre el vaso al licor sabe. Comedias, Tom. VI, Madrid, 1615, f. 117. The story is less important than it is in many of Lope’s dramas; but the sketches of common life are sometimes spirited, like the one in which Mendo describes his first sight of his future wife busied in household work, and the elaborate scene where his first child is christened.[356] The characters, on the other hand, are better defined and drawn than is common with him; and that of the plain, practically wise Mendo is sustained, from beginning to end, with consistency and skill, as well as with good dramatic effect.[357]